Burning Innocence
by Lady Bellatrix Black Lestrange
Summary: The wards on the door and around the room stopped him getting in, he was locked out of her one place of safety. The only place she felt completely safe, even if she was incredibly lonely.


**AN: A little aghast my friend and I rped a while ago. It's nothing like my other stuff, I don't know of I like it honestly but my girl told me to post it and she must be obeyed. So, enjoy.**

_Nobody's daughter_

_She never was, she never will_

_Be beholden_

_To anyone she cannot kill_

_You don't understand how damaged we really are_

_You don't understand how evil we really are ~Hole~_

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Bellatrix read the note, read it three times, four times, tears in her eyes that she refused to shed. She was cried out, she had no sadness left to weep for. Sitting in one of the guest bedrooms of her sister's manor with her old teddy on her lap on the untidy bed she rocked slightly back and forth, something she did when she was upset or nervous about something or simply because it made her feel better. Her body was bruised and sore, sitting hurt but the hot bath had helped a little to sooth the pain. She'd stayed there for awhile, her tears heavy and her broken sobs sounding in the marble bathroom the pixie in it's cage that Draco had sweetly gave to her had fallen silent, stopping it chattering squeaks and clicks, the raven with the deformed wing that lived in a black bared iron cage sat quietly on it's perch watching her with it's bead black eyes offering the fragile witch no comfort.

Now she sat wearing nothing but a pair of black knickers, a black vest top and a pair of over the knee black socks. She looked fragile with her hair damp and her eyes tired from all the tears she'd cried in the last few hours. It was one of the worst nights she could remember since being home from Azkaban, in fact if she thought about it the events would come close to some of the things she suffered there in that stone cell but only it wasn't the enemy inflicting the pain, the humiliation, the fear, it was her own husband. The man who'd swore to protect her and love her. The wards on the door and around the room stopped him getting in, he was locked out of her one place of safety. The only place she felt completely safe, even if she was incredibly lonely. It made her heart ache to think she had to ward him out, that she had to have this place at all.

But it wasn't his fault. He didn't mean to hurt her, she knew he didn't but it didn't stop the fear or the fact she knew she was playing with her own life sometimes when he was like that. Her bruised throat was visual evidence that he was capable of ending her life with a squeeze of his hand. A broken whimper as she lay back on the pillows and turned to lay on her side with a soft wince of pain. Never had she been so close to leaving him as she was in that moment, she'd left before but she'd not stayed away long. A year later she'd gone back to him, half mad from missing him so much. No, she'd not leave.

Slipping from the bed taking the old bear with her she opened the door and peeped down the dark hallway towards the bedroom they shared, the door was open a little letting out the fire light into the dark corridor. Biting her lip, a little flinch of pain as she dug her teeth into the small split there from the slap he'd delivered her when she'd turned her head away from him. Clutching the teddy to her chest she took a brave step outside into the darkness, her wand was in their bedroom away from her grip. Shadows were alive, at least in her head they were and she stopped with her heart hammering in her chest, the teddy in her hands her only company and source of comfort, her steps were shaking and she kept her eyes down on the floor not daring to look up at the shadows creeping closer. She fought her own battles, her own wars inside her head every single day, she had a war in her mind. Like his. The scars on her thighs and her arms some made by her own knife, her own hand.

Standing in the bedroom doorway she gazed at him as he sat on the chair by the window, stepping into the bedroom she shut the door on the darkness outside and wearily crept forwards, her wand was on the bedside where she left it but she didn't pick it up, instead she sat on his side of the bed crossing her legs under her and playing with the teddy's ear, not looking at him but keeping her emotion filled eyes down. "Did I do something to make you so mad at me?"

Rodolphus was the type of man to hold a grudge on anyone who crossed him even his beautiful wife who was looking so pathetic and broken as she sat there holding her childhood teddy bear with her expressive Bambi eyes fixed anywhere but on him. Had she forgotten the affair she was having, forgotten the other man she was letting touch her, kiss her, fuck her to orgasm? He had not. The letter he had wrote her was not at all lies, no rather the exact opposite of lies it was nothing but truth, the eldest Lestrange loved the dark witch with all his black soul every inch of her, every sick thought and crazy thing she had ever done he loved her but she was spreading her legs for some other man.

Yes he was angry with her for that and for so many other things he couldn't even recall right now. When he was writing the letter he had been calmer he had been aiming love at her telling her how sorry he was but in the short space of time that it had taken her to come back to their bedroom something inside him had shifted and changed again. It was that man she was sleeping with yes that was it, it was his fault all him the fucker, how dare he put his hands on something that belonged to him, his wife was his possession and no one else's. And the slut letting him seduce her easily or was that really how it happened? Bella was known for her little adventures outside their marriage.

The click of the lock on the door was her first warning that he wasn't happy with her and she was in for a rough night, stupid bitch should have stayed safe in her warded room that little love letter had worked perfectly to lure the lamb to the wolfs den (that was not true and later Rodolphus would know it as he knew it already in his heart. He had wrote the letter out of love for his beaten wife, telling her how much she meant to him but that was the other side of him. This side was not that man). With a slow movement Rodolphus turned from the window to look at the fragile looking witch in her little black lace knickers and lace vest top that did little to hid her perfectly shaped breasts underneath, the black over the knee socks were a cute touch giving her an even more fragile look that he wanted to break.

The smile on his face was another warning, one she knew well and one she should not ignore the last time he had been this way he had broken bones, that weak spot on her ribs on the left side from Azkaban, he had kicked her and the sound of snapping bone had made him laugh at her pain and her cries of agony, later he had hated himself, when the dark was gone and he was himself again seeing her sobbing in pain with her hair stuck to the blood on her skin his heart had broken for her and the agony he caused her but again that man was gone and the dark had him.

Crossing the room to stand in front of her in a few strides Rodolphus laughed and gently lifted her chin to make her look at him his eyes full of evil intent, "Bella, why would you think such a thing? Is it a guilty thought in your head my little girl, is it that man you're fucking so sweetly? Tell me baby does he make you scream like I do, does he make you tremble, make you bleed?" His voice like gravel, dark and full of malice, his hand connected with her cheek while the other pulled the bear from her grip. He could be cruel now knowing how much she loved the stuffed animal how it held memories of her dear old daddy whom she adored and also spread her legs for, the slut.

"How about we say bye bye to this? It's about time you let go of such things, stuffed animals are for children and by all accounts my little whore you are not a child," his voice patronizing now with a hint of evil laced in there, oh yes the bear was going to be embers in about five minutes but he wanted to hurt just that little bit more, "come on Bella, one flick of your wand and it's all done. Do it. Now." A command he was giving her with his voice a low growl, yes making her destroy her only treasure was cruel and the dark loved it.

Yes she'd fallen for it, the letter he'd written her had tugged her heart and he knew her better than anyone, knowing her weak spots, the way in which she responded to such words of love. She was his puppet and he pulled her strings like a master puppeteer, she had no choice, her love for the man was to strong to ignore and it didn't matter how he abused her, how he hurt her she'd always go back to him, always. The only other person who such a hold on her was their Master.

Raising her hand to her now stinging cheek tears shone in her eyes at his obvious betrayal of her adoration for him, she didn't know he hadn't been this way when he wrote it, she didn't know he'd changed somewhere between putting the note under her door and the time it took her to buck up the courage to brave the darkness in the hall way only to face another one, but this darkness she was facing now was far worse then the moving shadows in her mind.

Her eyes were now glued to the teddy in his hand and she bit her lip to stop it trembling and giving him the satisfaction of seeing her so distressed over a stuffed animal. She adored that bear, had it since she was a little girl and took it everywhere with her. Cissy had kept it and had given it back to her on her very first night home from Azkaban and she'd simply stared at it for ages before holding it to her chest and since then she'd not slept a night without it.

Shaking her head slightly she gave him a pleading look, about to reach out to take it back but changing her mind and keeping her hands fisted in the blankets on the bed. "N-no, I can't. . . Rod, don't make me. Give him back." The fact she called the teddy a him not an it showed her feelings for the tatty old thing, he was simply named Teddy Bear but it was the first thing she always grabbed when he was kicking her out of the bedroom, she went for the bear before her wand because to her her wand though she loved the walnut talon, could be replaced, the old bear couldn't.

Lifting her hand she wiped at the falling tears, not able to hold them back anymore. "Why are you so mad at me? I haven't done anything to make you mad." Her affair wasn't something she was thinking of, they'd been alright since then and she'd promised she wasn't seeing him anymore and she hadn't so there was no way he'd seen them together because they'd not been together.

Reaching out her shaking hand for the bear she met his eyes and held his gaze, her own sad and lost. After all the abuse she'd suffered in Azkaban was it to much to ask for from the man who swore he loved her to show her some tenderness and love? It seemed it was to much to ask for and it was times like this she wished Azkaban had killed her. "Can I have him back?" Her voice a soft and almost broken whisper, that fire she always had in her eyes was dimmed to embers, he was pushing a very fragile woman almost to far, if that fire went out and he finally broke what the Wardens never could, she'd give up and he'd lose her.

Rodolphus was reveling in her pain, seeing the woman that the wizarding world feared so much crying over a stuffed animal was pathetic. If only people knew, if they knew how she bent to his every whim, how she flinched when he lifted his hand, how she cried when she thought he couldn't hear her they'd not fear her anymore, no they'd laugh at her. His jealously they his wife was still after so many years their masters favourite made him want to beat it out of her but no matter how many times he did beat her, she always kept that fire, until now.

The man was smiling evilly at her his big hand holding the teddy bear by it's arm. "You want /him/ back?" Cruelly with a dark laugh he held out the bear for her to take but pulled it away again when she reached out to take it from him. "Sorry kitten it's time to say goodbye to Mr. Bear."

Walking backwards a few steps to the roaring fire in the grate his eyes still on her the man dangled the bear over the flames. "Bye bear." Laughing Rodolphus tossed the stuffed animal into the flames his gaze finally leaving his distressed wife the toy burning in the fire causing thick smoke to spill from the grate.

It wasn't just a stuffed animal, not to her. It meant something, the only thing her father had ever given her without asking for her 'services' in return. It was sentimental to her, now it was burning in the fire. Jumping from the bed with a little squeak of distress, the dark witch made a lunge at the burning teddy bear but he was faster and gripped her around the middle lifting her off her feet with little or no effort on his part. Her eyes where wide and locked onto the teddy as it's fur burnt in the flames of the fire, tears brimmed them, they'd gathered on her lashes reflecting in the dim light. She didn't even struggle, there was no point to it his grip was like iron. Why? Why would he do that? Why did he like to see her hurting? Why did he treat her this way? Age old questions that wouldn't ever be answered.

"What's the matter, baby? All the fight gone already, I'm disappointed in you Bella." A sneared laugh into her ear, his lips ghosting her skin. " His grip tightened enough to crack her ribs, she was having trouble breathing and then she started to struggle, those tears that had been in her eyes tracking her cheeks. "There's my fire cracker."

Squirming in his grip like some wild cat she tried to free herself but only earned herself a harsh slap, even from that angle he hit her hard enough to make her dizzy before tossing her to the floor with a thud. The fight drained from her, she was mentally exhausted, tired and worn down, he was killing her from the inside and he didn't even know it. Azkaban was nothing compared to him now. She stayed where she fell, only sitting up enough to look at the embers of the only thing left from her childhood, from her innocence, gone.

Kneeling in front his wife, Rodolphus pushed her hair from her face, his hand stroking her cheek in a sick gesture of tenderness. "Oh don't cry, Bella." Pulling her into his arms and sitting her between his legs he rocked her as she let out little noises of sadness and hurt. She let him comfort her, the man who caused her pain, she let him hold her, stoke his hand through her curls and whisper softly in her ear. Her loyalty to their master would kill her in the end, she'd die for him in the battle of Hogwarts, but Bellatrix had died a long time ago.


End file.
